Stay Frosty and Alert – Robots Root 16 July 2018

Zombieland 2 is finally happening, with the whole cast returning, and I’m stoked. In an era of unnecessary sequels, this is one I’m actually excited about. MIGHT have something to do with Emma Stone, admittedly.

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Meanwhile, in space:

Wait, WHUT. A new Robocop is coming… but not a follow-up to the film from a few years ago… but as a sequel or connected film to the original Robocop. I *think* they plan on bypassing Robocop 2 as well. Look, I don’t care, just imagine: Neil Blomkamp doing the patented cavalcade of failing ED-209 designs malfunctioning?! I’m down with that sort of business.

Shazam doesn’t look bad at all, visually. The muscles look 3% less plastic, and Zachary Levi’s whimsy is definitely showing here. The choice of this as the first official photo is deliberate, and it reads strongly of the ‘Big’ reference, which I think is a good direction to diversify from other supers films, particularly the DCEU’s current slate.

Y the Last Man has been cast, and while I haven’t read the series, I’ve followed the production of this for years now, and I think it sounds like an interesting story. Good casting thus far.

I’ve talked about this a lot over the last few months with mainstream folks, but I just can’t get over how tickled I am that 3 years ago, Kristin Wiig (and everyone else) would never have imagined she would be the star villain in a major Wonder Woman film with female leadership. SO cool.

Now, I haven’t seen the latest film, but I’m into the development of Glass. The early images are rad… supers therapy!

The only thing of interest here is that its the new best manip of Dwayne Johnson as Black Adam.

More on the Joaquin Phoenix Joker situation. I mean, the takeaway here is the reminder that Phoenix goes after weird and interesting projects, seems interested in this one, and of course, side-eye at Marvel over the Dr Strange project. We were just talking about this on the podcast last night, but I forgot about his aborted Strange…

Joss Whedon is not without his controversy these days, over his infidelity and weird heeby-jeebs about his female characters and how he treats the actresses who play them… however I will say the concept of Victotorian-era supers femmes as an HBO project sounds GREAT!

Cate Shortland has beat out apparently 70+ other directors to helm the Black Widow film. I like that it’s a female director with some unique vision in the indie scene, and I like that the project is moving forward, even as the rumored script moves backwards (which is also good to me)…

YUSSS William Gibson’s Aliens 3 script has been adapted to comics form, and I cannot wait. It was D O P E and sad that they never went that direction. I saw a treatment years and years ago, and it featured themes we take for granted in SF today, very much like something out of Expanse: dueling governments, space station panic, etc.